Expansion costs in perspective

[Para Handy]

I am surprised that people are so upset about the price of the Horizons expansion and the lifetime pass.

Many people using E D have spent more than the cost of the lifetime pass on a hotas (some twice the cost).

Try running a flight simulator without paying for expansions (addons). Any flight sim addon is going to cost more than your Horizons expansion (with the discount).

Imagine getting a ticket for £120 that included every future addition to your flight simulator / train simulator / whatever. You would snap it up pdq that's for sure. (I refuse to add up the cost of every addon I have for just one flight simulator, never mind all the variations - it's too scary.)

For the non-simmers, how about considering the cost of the various editions of Assassins Creed, Medal of Honour, etc etc. Would you have bought a ticket that covered every future edition? You bet your sweet (something) that you would or would have wished that you did in retrospect.

 

[Soopyyy]

I'll be honest, when I first seen the prices it did take me back a little. But you're right considering the play time I have gotten from ED, $60AUD isn't too bad for an expansion to add as much again. Provided it does add as much again.

 

[CMDR Zantiry Kaine]

Well I wasn't really happy with the price when I first saw it. But when you put it like that I cant help but think of what I spent on DCS. The expansion is about the same as one addon for that, and it only gets me one aircraft, maybe 2 of the cheaper ones. So not a bad deal at all for what we will hopefully get out of it.

 

[Space Fan]

Pay, or don't pay.

 

[Stewart_]

People like to whine. They also have expectations that company's can stay in businesses handing out free / or very cheap software.

Elite won't survive if updates are $1.99, their developers want to be paid - Frontier have to compete with professional salaries ( QA, developers, artists et al - not cheap ).

$39 is a damned good price for another year of updates.

Your paying an upfront cost for these updates, otherwise its a subscription fee.

Many companies run on a business model such as this.. a yearly payment. For example JetBrains, they charge a license fee, and for that you get software updates for 1 year. You don't have to pay, your stuck with the version you have.

 

[DangerousLarry]

A lot more people don't spend €200+ on HOTAS or other peripherals and a lot of people don't spend €100+ on a single game.

The main problem is the expansion is pretty much being split in two and asking for full price for each. We won't even get that content up front either, instead it will trickle in over time. A lot of people don't like that method of content delivery either. On top of this we'll practically be expected to pay €40-50 each year for the same game just to keep up to date. What about EVA? Is that going to be split in two? What about walkies? Is that going to be split in two? It's not going to be great if in three years time we get the announcement of being able to walk only for the first of three expansions under the "Walkies" expansion line is just walking around the three space stations we have then the next allowing us to walk in our own aircraft and the next being able to actually do EVA stuff like repairing your ship or other players ships... All that content that should be there for €50 spread out over three years for €150. That doesn't make me happy.

 

[Eagle Eye]

Well in my case:

-I don't use HOTAS, I use M+K or Extreme 3D Joystick I have already owned to play. So $0 on that.
-I don't play atmospheric flight simulators or even most AAA games that most people enjoy.
-Unfortunately my tastes are such that the games I enjoy the most often got no expansion or sequels. So if they sold (and I bought season passes) it will actually give me a lot of losses.


On Horizons, I see and read about it and I find nothing to be excited about for the amount of money expected from me. The good news is that FD gives previous edition for free with each expansion, so you can wait until there's something you really want and buy that season, getting everything in between for "free".

 

[HardstyleFlavor]

I did have some misgivings when I first saw the price (I was expecting 20-30 USD for expansions), however after thinking about the enjoyment I get out of this game I can honestly say that 45 USD/year is nothing. I just wish university tuition in the United States wasn't so ridiculously high. I could have a down-payment on a house if not for my love of computer science xD. Sigh.

 

[Bokugo]

I just want to buy only planetary landings without all of the other updates they throw in. I don't really want another powerplay to happen. All of the past updates have meant nothing to me except new ships and number tweaks. I only want PL but I would have to spend over $100-120 to get it.
Also not too happy to find out all of the updates we have had so far have been their own "season". So, is ED a free game now? What if no one wants the first "season" we had? Can we get it disabled to get the next one we do want or play the "base game" that has no updates for free? The decisions FD make will always astound me I think. I never see them coming.

 

[P4riah]

I paid $60 for the game. Was perfectly happy with that, plenty of content with free content constantly coming. That's worked out fine so far, no complaints.

Since I'm not coming from the perspective of a new player, $60 more is too much for an expansion. I don't give 2 kriffs who gets the base game bundled with it.

Both scenarios that I've seen argued, either the base game is 'free' with the bundle, or the bundle is like $30-$30, are bull.

Scenario 1 - base game is free: $60 is too much for an expansion. Full stop. There is no debating this. Back in the day when expansions were the thing and DLC didn't exist? They were 20 dollars. The $15 dollar discount doesn't really even bring it into any acceptable range. There are plenty of entire games that cost $45.

Scenario 2 - $60 price is some combination of base game for $20-40, expansion for $20-40. Whichever way you break it down, giving me no option to buy just the expansion at $20-40 BEFORE discount is a disgusting insult. You release expansions, you give existing players a way to buy JUST THAT for a reasonable price. As for the discount, if they really don't want to give us an expansion only option, then make the discount equal to at least what the base game is worth. And don't try to tell me that ANYONE actually thinks the base game is only worth 15 bucks. Don't add an insult to my intelligence to the insult to my 'loyalty'.

I read the description of what would be coming in this update, and mentally came up with a figure I'd pay for it. Then I read the ACTUAL price and it was like a slap in the face. Maybe there are players whom are so excited for this that it's worth it to them, but I think that they are pricing themselves out of a LOT of players who can't throw around Star Citizen amounts of money. As it is, the mental gymnastics that some people are going through on this forum to convince THEMSELVES that it's worth it are laughable.

And now I learn that this probably includes less than half of the planned planetary landing content? Get the kriff out of here.

Up the discount to $30, make it permanent for existing players and not 'limited time', and then we'll talk. Until then, I'll wait until it's on sale for a price that's reasonable, and one more peg falls out of the bridge of my trust in this company.

 

[Skillet]

I sent my HOTAS back.

 

[CrustyGoth]

Once again this is not rocket science people - this is their financial model rather than a subscription fee so either decide it is worth it and pay the money to play the expansion or don't.

Don't talk about betrayal, losing trust, why everyone should feel hard done by whether they realise it or not, etc, etc... just buy it or don't. Really not that hard you know!

 

[Drink!]

I am surprised that people are so upset about the price of the Horizons expansion and the lifetime pass.

Many people using E D have spent more than the cost of the lifetime pass on a hotas (some twice the cost).

Try running a flight simulator without paying for expansions (addons). Any flight sim addon is going to cost more than your Horizons expansion (with the discount).

Imagine getting a ticket for £120 that included every future addition to your flight simulator / train simulator / whatever. You would snap it up pdq that's for sure. (I refuse to add up the cost of every addon I have for just one flight simulator, never mind all the variations - it's too scary.)

For the non-simmers, how about considering the cost of the various editions of Assassins Creed, Medal of Honour, etc etc. Would you have bought a ticket that covered every future edition? You bet your sweet (something) that you would or would have wished that you did in retrospect.

You analogy works for some people. For me it doesn't. I have dual joysticks that i found clearance at gamestop for $10 each. I played all the assassins creeds, never payed for any DLC, play the last 6 COD, only paid for 1 seasons pass.

With that said, I did buy the lifetime pass. I'm more upset that the discount wasn't more. I think the discount should have been half the cost of the full game.

 

[P4riah]

On Horizons, I see and read about it and I find nothing to be excited about for the amount of money expected from me. The good news is that FD gives previous edition for free with each expansion, so you can wait until there's something you really want and buy that season, getting everything in between for "free".

I hope that will be the case, but I'm not sure it will be. I could easily see them making each bundle be 'base game + only this expansion' SKIPPING everything in between. They seem intent to make it so each of these expansions are discrete and separate.

I knew going in that they were going to release paid expansions, and I was happy about that. I even knew that the tentative ~$15 prices they were talking about early on were not going to happen. I expected that over the course of 2 or 3 years I would pay the cost of the game several times over, buying all the expansions.

But fully the price of the game right away for the very first expansion, and not a very big one at that? And probably every single one afterwards? Sorry. This game has had a rocky first year so far. I don't trust you THAT much.

You can't trust ANY game dev these days. The amount of shenanigans that goes on in the industry is bonkers. I never preorder or early adopt anything, and every time I hope that I'm proven wrong and am missing out on the early adopter perks on great things, but so far, on just about everything the industry puts out, it's proven that it's always better to wait and see.

- - - Updated - - -

I think the discount should have been half the cost of the full game.

Boils it down. If the discount was more I'd have no problems and would have already bought the kriffing thing.

 

[CrustyGoth]

You can't trust ANY game dev these days. The amount of shenanigans that goes on in the industry is bonkers. I never preorder or early adopt anything, and every time I hope that I'm proven wrong and am missing out on the early adopter perks on great things, but so far, on just about everything the industry puts out, it's proven that it's always better to wait and see.

Currently I'm thinking paying £35 for the lifetime expansion pass just over a year ago shows it isn't always better to wait and see...

 

[KRONFROMGALVATRON]

Regardless of how they're pitching Horizons, it seems the business model is going to be something best thought of as an annual subscription model where a $60 expansion comes out approximately yearly and is pretty much required if you want to keep playing the latest and greatest content. But not absolutely essential since it seems you can continue to play in open without the expansions so better in some regards since it's sort of optional.

In some ways, I'd prefer they simply say there's an annual subscription fee and get it out in the open, it might seem more honest to their customers too but they have said so many times there won't be a subscription so I expect they'd be fully crucified if they did a 180 publicly and openly.

Regardless, it's not realistic to expect FD to continue actively developing new features without a solid continuing revenue stream. I'm personally fine paying something to keep the devs working. I think the best is probably yet to come and as of now, I still have faith. E.g. exploration and missions will hopefully be improved more over time, FD has stated this is their intention.

I have about 200 hrs in the game which is more than it took for me to complete Skyrim's main quest and several of the major side quest lines, and I'm not done playing v1 elite much less anything new that comes before Horizons or as part of it, so I feel it's a pretty good deal considering I thought Skyrim was a good deal to get 120 hrs out of it for $60 USD. Heck, I only got 15 hrs out of the new Wolfenstein which was a full price AAA title, now that's a bit lame in my opinion and that game was just too short, but it's not uncommon for a full price AAA title to have a <20 hrs main campaign.

If they fall down on continuing to add good content and depth to the game with Horizons and during 2016, maybe next year will be a different story, but this go around they'll be getting my money.

 

[h347h]

The days of cheap expansions are gone. Even wows expansions are going up and they are starting to try and adopt an expansion a year.

 

[BlueFalcon]

At first I thought it was a little expensive but once I thought about it the price made more sense. Many mmos charge $13-15 a month plus the cost of the game plus the cost of expansions. Just the subscription on the low side is $156 for a year.

 

[Hirudo89]

Currently I'm thinking paying £35 for the lifetime expansion pass just over a year ago shows it isn't always better to wait and see...

Agreed. Lifetime Expansion is WAY to overpriced now, im not even considering.
On the other hand, the horizon update alone with forced basegame-double-purchase is a joke itself...

Well done, FD.

 

[P4riah]

Currently I'm thinking paying £35 for the lifetime expansion pass just over a year ago shows it isn't always better to wait and see...

In that case, since we knew there would be expansions, that price was ridiculously low, even with the lower prices they were guessing at at the time. Unfortunately I didn't hear about it in time. Fully agree though.